Hunchback

Starred review from January 6, 2025
Ichikawa’s provocative debut chronicles a disabled woman’s sexual awakening. Shaka, a Japanese woman who lives with myotubular myopathy, a genetic disease whose symptoms include difficulty breathing and muscle weakness, is independently wealthy thanks to an inheritance from her parents. She spends her days taking online university courses and writing pornographic stories for money, which she sends to food banks and shelters for homeless young girls. In between regular bodily maintenance, such as using her ventilator to remove mucus from her windpipe, she posts risqué messages on social media: “I’d like to know what it’s like to have an abortion.” When Tanaka, a male nurse who works at the group home where she lives, offers to have sex with Shaka for money, she accepts, and after consummating their deal, she embarks on a series of escapades that mirror her written fantasies. Ichikawa, who lives with congenital myopathy herself, exhibits an undeniable talent with this character study, which doubles as a damning critique of Japanese cultural norms. Japan “works on the understanding that disabled people don’t exist within society,” Shaka narrates. “Able-bodied Japanese people have likely never even imagined a hunchbacked monster struggling to read a physical book.” Throughout, Shaka’s desire and wit make her a deeply human character (“Yeah, that felt—good,” she writes after hitting the ventilator). This is impossible to forget.